Our project is called Discovering Cultural Diversity with Pupils and Their Parents. Since our school is located in a culturally diverse area, we have been facing challenges, related to migrant pupils, for many years. We have developed several methods for improving thier integration. We wish to bring these challenges to a higher level and link them with international cooperation. Above all, our goal is to share and upgrade our positive and rich experience in this area through international cooperation and exchange of good practice. We decided on this particular project theme because we notice that migrant pupils in our school are still discriminated, or have learning and/or behaviour difficulties despite numerous activities to prevent it. Because the integration policy, these pupils have to adjust to Slovenian school system. Therefore there aren't enough possibilities for them to actively express their identity. This also seems to be the reason for their deviant behaviour. In this light we have decided to take a step towards enabling them to actively express themselves, especially to actively express their culture. Moreover, our society tends to look rather negatively upon other cultures, migrants, anything different or unknown. This negative attitude has become more noticeable, as the number of refugees and migrants to Europe increases. We thought of finding a joint solution for both problems. At our school there are many migrant pupils and parents involved in school life, therefore we decided to take up this project together with them. Project goals and objectives are to: - know more about cultural backgrounds and nationalities of migrant pupils at our school; - improve migrant pupils' social integration; - improve IKT skills and increase IKT usage;- meet pupils through different ways of international integration;- establish a better connection between pupils, parents, school and local community as well as mutual cooperation between them; - increase pupils' tolerance to children with different social backgrounds; - improve these pupils' learning achievements; - increase tolerance to refugees and migrants entering EU and to being different in general - stimulate active involvement of teachers, pupils and parents in project implementationPrimarily, the project will include pupils, parents and other school employees. It also aims to actively involve local society. Other citizens will benefit from the project through media (local and national). Schools participating in a fine arts competition will also be included in the project, which will thus spread onto international level. The project will spread on regional, national and international level also via its own website, eTwinning platform and various social networks. In order to achieve the project goals and objectives we plan to organize numerous activities at our partner schools. As part of the project, a concert will take place as well as dance classes, fairy tale workshops, making jewellery and other products, learning children's games, cooking traditional dishes, karaoke, learning different alphabets, holidays, customs and traditions. It is essential that these activities are carried out by migrant pupils and their parents with teachers' support. All these events strive to encourage parents and pupils to actively learn about cultures of all the pupils at our school. The traditional fine arts competition shall be dedicated to this theme. We will provide all partner schools with a place, where project material will be presented, for example calendar of events, news, articles... All the activities, project implementation and its results, material and recordings will be presented at the final event, joint picnic of school and local community. The activities will also be published online and on social networks. While implementing the project, tangible and virtual project material will be produced: leaflets, magazine, newspaper, as the project finishes a publication or book, e-magazines, e-diary, blog… We plan to measure project successfulness by observation, polls, questionnaires, tests, group discussions, interim reports. In terms of project successfulness we are also going to measure productivity, efficiency, involvement, entirety, provability... The following results are expected: achieving project goals (listed above), creating a successful website, getting good response on social networks, producing high quality project material, providing successful project dissemination, good international cooperation and exchanging good practices between schools.
Our school stands amid blocks of flats in a culturally diverse part of town. We have coped with issues of migrant students for a number of years. We have developed several methods for their successful integration. Wishing to take a step further, we decided to bring our challenge to an international level. Four other foreign schools with similar issues and students were invited to participate in our project. The project aimed to: promote tolerance, mutual acceptance and integration of migrant and other students by discovering cultural diversity at school, local and genral public levels; discover different cultures of students through various methods and activities in different areas (music, dancing, cuisine); encourage active involvement in project and school activities;improve students and teachers’ IKT skills and use; provide students with opportunity and encouragement to express their cultural identity; teach students how to live in harmony and help them develop positive attitude towards other cultures;make students understand that learning about other cultures broadens their knowledge and horizon, especially in Europe, which is a mixture of cultures; make students aware of changes in society (migrants, refugees…) and help them develop a positive attitude towards them; enable exchange of good practices on international level;include students, parents, teachers, other school workers and local community in international cooperation; promote the project on local, regional and international level. Primarily it was students, parents, teachers and other school workers who participated in the project. Local community was actively involved, while various societies took part in project activities. Many other schools got included by taking part in two international fine arts contests in two countries thus expanding the project internationally. Partner schools organized many activities to reach project goals. Certain traditional school events were adjusted to meet project requirements, others were added. Schools sent each other New Year's greeting cards with cultural characteristics of individual countries, made by students. All schools placed cards on display. Each school also organized an event, where dances of students from different cultural backgrounds of each school were presented. Students learnt and performed one traditional dance from a partner school. Migrant students' parents helped with presentation of their dances and culture. Schools used project activities to participate in events of regional cultural societies. Fine arts contest was dedicated to our project and depiction of diverse cultures. At the end of school year, each school worked together with local community to organize an event, where we presented project results, distributed project material and carried out project activities for general public. Students, parents, school workers, local societies, local community members and community representatives were all invited to these events. The second year schools exchanged video greetings in December with students showing Christmas and New Year’s traditions of their cultures. We also prepared an exchange of traditional fairy tales from partner countries, which we did in pairs. Each partner country wrote a script of its traditional fairy tale and sent it to a partner school. Next, students of both schools performed each other’s fairy tale and shot a video of it. Finally, a cultural day was held at schools, on which students could see both fairy tales. The second project year, Turkey set up an exhibition called Child and Peace. Students created works inspired by multiculturalism and peace. Short and long-term results and effects: migrant students feel better and more included; they have become more successful, school atmosphere has improved, whereas parents and local community have strengthened their ties with the school. Our school successfully cooperated with partner schools and learnt examples of their good practices. Some teachers have overcome their fear of international cooperation. New teams for international projects were formed. Students have learnt about different cultures, have become more aware of them and have developed a positive attitude towards them. Tolerance for marginalized social groups, including migrants and refugees, has increased. We gained new knowledge and experience in an active way. Because of cooperation between schools students could make new international contacts. Students and teachers also became more skilled in IKT and have been using them more often. Different project material was prepared for the purpose of project dissemination. The final product is a collection of material presented in an e-book, dictionary and a short film. We have become aware of fear that foreign cultures may cause, but have also proved that by learning about them, this fear is unnecessary and redundant. This is the message we disseminated on school, local, regional and international level.